Russell Watson clears his throat to take centre stage in Les Mis

Hugh Jackman, Gérard Depardieu and Liam Neeson have all donned Jean Valjean’s convict’s uniform in Les Misérables. Now Russell Watson, the Salford tenor who suffered two near-fatal brain tumours, is set to make his West End debut in the role.

Watson, who has sold seven million albums since he was discovered singing in a working men’s club, disclosed that he has held secret meetings with Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the Les Mis producer.

“I went to see Cameron Mackintosh about doing Les Misérables,” Watson tells me. “We’ve had a good chat about that. It’s something I’d like to do. It would give me a huge amount of satisfaction to play a role like Valjean. I would do it in the West End, towards the end of 2014.”

Watson has been encouraged to take the role by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, the Les Mis composers, who have opened up their catalogue and crafted songs for the tenor to sing on his new album, Only One Man.

“Claude-Michel keeps saying, ‘When are you going to do Valjean?’,” Watson said. “He said I’d be perfect because I now have the life experience to draw on. Valjean is a tortured soul.”